By Robin Pomeroy

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The United States came under fire on Thursday from the European Union (news - web sites) and environmentalists over its wish to use the world's forests to soak up greenhouse gases rather than cut emissions at home.

At tough 180-nation talks in The Hague on how to slow global warming, the EU rejected a U.S. proposal to use its own forests and farmland as ``sinks'' to soak up greenhouse gases, dismissing the plan as a ``free gift'' to the world's largest polluter.

The credits earned would go a long way toward enabling the United States to meet the emission cuts it agreed to in a United Nations (news - web sites)' pact set in Kyoto, Japan, three years ago.

The EU move surprised U.S. negotiators as the 15-nation bloc a day earlier had welcomed the proposal as a good ``first step'' toward reaching a compromise.

But after studying the proposal in detail, the EU said in a statement: ``The USA/Canada/Japan proposal does not ensure the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol and it does not sufficiently address the concerns of the EU.'' The U.S. proposal is backed by Canada and Japan.

Environmentalists also lashed out at the United States, accusing it of a cynical scheme to turn the Amazon and other primal forests into ``carbon sinks'' instead of cutting gases from industry and car exhausts.

They said the proposal was a blatant attempt to dump the problem of global warming onto the world's poor countries and get out of making costly cuts in energy consumption.

The United States and others want to use wilderness areas such as the Amazon, whose trees consume the gas, as well as domestic forests to offset their own carbon dioxide emissions.

Under the scenario preferred by the United States, richer countries which have emissions reduction targets could buy credits from developing nations which have forests that soak up carbon dioxide.

However, some dissenting environmental groups said this system of plus-and-minus accounting might not be a bad idea if it protected huge tracts such as the Amazon and Orinoco basins, sometimes called ``the lungs of the planet,'' from destructive, gas-producing, slash-and-burn logging.

Increasingly Severe Weather

The talks are set against a backdrop of increasingly severe weather which has buffeted Europe, Asia and Africa in recent months, moving the issue of global warming further into the political mainstream in affluent countries.

Many scientists blame the events on global climate change in part brought on by greenhouse gases.

But the idea of trading ``rights to pollute'' is taking off.

It has already begun between some countries which produce less than their globally agreed maximum and those who, way over the red line, must pay to keep their over-pollution from pushing the global total over it as well.

``If we allow this, industrialized countries could completely avoid the need to make emissions reductions in their own countries,'' Greenpeace's Ben Pearson told a news briefing.

Scientists fear world temperatures may rise by up to six degrees centigrade this century, creating more extreme weather.

Green groups say the use of developing countries' forests as ''carbon sinks'' would be a major loophole allowing richer nations to wriggle out of emissions cuts they agreed to in Kyoto.

Greenpeace said counting on sinks, whether at home or abroad, to make up for not reducing emissions, was scientifically questionable and politically unacceptable.

Your Forests Cancel Our Exhausts

But Greenpeace and other big-name groups such as Friends of the Earth (news - web sites) and the World Wide Fund for Nature were dealt a slap on Thursday by scientists who backed the principle.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a U.S. group which examines the data behind policy issues, released a statement signed by 110 environmental researchers, including a Nobel prize winner, saying the Kyoto agreement should include sinks.

They said the concept could be used to help protect rain forests from logging -- the biggest threat to rain forests.

The fact that 20-25 percent of man-made CO2 emissions came from burning down trees meant forests had to be addressed as part of the fight against climate change, the statement said.

Some Latin American governments and environmentalists who favor the sinks proposal think Greenpeace and groups are blinded by dogma to the possible advantages.

``It depends what the rules are. The NGOs opposing this are taking the wrong stand,'' said Philip Fearnside, of Brazil's National Institute for Research in the Amazon.

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